


How to Love

by city_bright



Category: The Mindy Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 07:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12502160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/city_bright/pseuds/city_bright
Summary: Danny learns how to love.





	How to Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Lil Wayne song of all things lol. I might do a Mindy version of this, but I'm not sure.

Danny had never been really lucky with love in life, romantic love or otherwise. 

His estranged relationship with his father did a number on him, unable to have a man to look up to, a father to admire and emulate for when he grew older, a kind of husband to aspire to. What he can remember of his father was simply anger, always fighting with his mother, treating her as less than. He vowed to never be that man, that husband, that father.

Christina was the love of his life. Or so he thought. He truly believed she was the one for him, the path in his life, but deep down, he knew her growing cold shoulder and general apathy towards him (and if he's being honest, his own detachment from her) was not how it should be. He wishes he could say he was surprised at finding her in their bed with another man, but he can't. It was the push she gave him to finally file for divorce. He just couldn't do it before because he wasn't one to back out from his vows - to be with her forever, in sickness and in health, for better or worse. 

Mindy is the love of his life, this he knows as a fact. She lights the darkest corners of his heart with her never ending fire, exposes his wounds but heals them too, and makes him want to learn how to love, how to be. She helps him with his baggage, never complaining about the weight of it on their shoulders. Until one day they crack, or rather, she cracks. It becomes too overwhelming to carry herself and him at the same time, and she chooses to save herself. He gets it, he wants her to save herself too. 

He carries his own baggage now, and it's heavier than he thought. Maybe because his whole life, he has relied on other people to carry it for him. But not this time. He will learn to carry it and lighten it himself. 

Danny seeks closure from his father, who said to him that his departure had nothing and everything to do with him and Richie. They were perfect children, more wonderful than he ever deserved or could've handled. He wanted what was best for them and for his marriage with Annette, but Danny argued that a bad father was better than a nonexistent one, and how dare he assume that what he wanted equated to what was actually best for his family, the family he was supposed to love, protect and support through thick and thin, no matter what.

It wasn't his intentions, not for a million years. It wasn't his fault and yet it was absolutely, 100% his fault. He didn't know any better, and he didn't know anything else when he decided that his way was the only way, that his wants were the only ones that mattered. It was his personal, twisted brand of love his childhood shaped for him, and Mindy didn't deserve or need it. 

He hasn't quite figured it out yet - how to love, how to love Mindy - but he's getting there. She helps him, and the growing pains of this journey is one she is confident she can endure this time around. 

He dances for her, not as grand gestures, but out of the sheer joy of doing it and making her smile. He kisses her more slowly and takes his time now, and it drives her up the wall most nights, urging him to just get on with it. He does as she says eventually, but she needs to be worshipped properly and not haphazardly, and she laughs at him, but he doesn't mind. He loves her laugh. He tells her his secrets and deepest fears, depositing pieces of him for her safe keeping. He trusts her now, in a way he didn't before because she's not out to get him, she never was, and he wonders why he didn't believe that a long time ago. 

Some days he resents her for working too much because his neediness overtakes him sometimes, but he reminds himself of the way she moves in an operating room, the confident and steady hand she has as she makes the first incision of a C-section, the sigh of relief when she has a successful delivery, the loyalty to her patients, and the concentrated furrow of her brows as she pours over patient files. He's striving to be the kind of husband to her that doesn't mistake her dedication to her career as threatening, but as a point of pride. He wants to see her thrive and succeed, and he understands that it doesn't take away what they have as a family. He knows that now. 

He knows how to love Mindy.


End file.
